Broken Sunsets
by D R O W N-I N-S E Q U I N S
Summary: The room is set alive in a red glow that they know as their own and it looks like blood and despair and anger and passion and it’s them. It’s when she comes at sunset that the truth comes out. Oneshot. Dasey.


**Okay this goes out to WhenLighteningStrikes because hello she's brilliant and ah-mazing and I'm always shocked that she likes anything I do. And this doesn't even c o m p a r e to her writing but all you can do is try, right??? The songs that I wrote this to are Breathe Me by Sia and Sunsets and Carcrashes by the Spill Canvas. Oh and I'm also aware that a lot of my titles are repetitive but I'm okay with that. :) I hope you enjoy and if you do let me know in a r e v i e w, say it with me now, review. ;).**

* * *

Her room still smells like her.

It still smells like her and looks like her and in so many ways it is her. Her bed is made, her clothes are folded ( probably twice because that's just the kind of keener she is ), and her CD's are alphabetized. And it's like going to a time capsule of better days. ( days where it didn't hurt to smile or breath or simply be alive ) And he hates her. He hates her, hates her, just fucking hates her.

_Hates her for being the only one to ever really break him._

---

They won't stop looking at him.

Their gazes are full of worry and anxiety and he just wants to scream. He wants to scream until they believe, he wants to scream that he's fine. He's fine. Can't they see he is just fucking fine?! ( only he's not fine and it _hurts_, it all just really hurts so bad that he's not quite sure if his heart, that he swears isn't there anyways, is still in fact beating ) But that's not his style at all. In fact ( oh so _fucking_ ironically, but really that's just the story of his life ) it's her style. The deranged drama Queen act has always been right up her alley and he can't take that from her.

And honestly it's not because he's waiting for her to come back full on drama Queen mode and yell at him for being the same lazy cad he's always been and no he swears he's not waiting for Classic Case full on freak out, he promises and everybody knows how much that means coming from him. Even if he does live for that kind of thing. ( even if there's nothing else to live for now )

He seems to exchange girls with every breath ( wait, he's still _breathing_? Because it sure as _hell_ doesn't _feel_ like it ) he takes. They're all pretty and sparkling and shine and new and they're not her. Their hair doesn't smell like coconuts and their eyes don't remind him of crashing waves. They smoke, they curse, they shut up and put out. He doesn't love them. Doesn't need them. But he does want them. ( and he never really wanted her, now did he? And that made all the difference ) Derek gets what he wants after all.

_Every single damn time._

---

He's never quite sure when she'll come.

She comes and goes as quickly as cigarette smoke. ( intoxicating, deadly, forever a stained onto him no matter how hard he tries to _scrub scrub scrub _her away and she's leaking into him and scarring him from the inside out ) He's in his room, sitting on his bed and she's perched on his computer chair. She looks mad and he's raking her brain for what he did this time.

"I'm sick of all those girls Derek. It's disgusting and wrong. If you want to be a chauvinistic pig, then that's your issue, but I refuse to have to hear it," she's hissing and her blue eyes turn into ice and this is just the kind of game he's been waiting for. He slowly let's his smirk settle onto his face and folds his arms comfortably.

"Sorry Case. I know you get jealous so easily," he drawls and he's about to say more but she cuts him off.

"Der-_ek_, I do not get jealous! I just think it's so wrong. After all women went through for equal rights and yet they're still used as your… your… well you know," she's blushing by now and all he wants to do is make her say it ( and well do it with him but he's pretty sure that's a quite firm no ) and he tries to hold back his laughter. He's raising his eyebrow in that cavalier way that he happens to know drives her to brink of insanity.

"No Case, I don't know. What in the world are you talking about," he's daring her with his eyes to say it, say it, _say_ it. He wants to hear the dirty word ( only to her, to him it's pretty harmless ) out of her pretty pink mouth. And he knows, he just knows ( because he knows her, knows her better than she'll ever know herself ) that she won't be able to resist the bait. She doesn't know how to lose. Not from him.

"Sex toy! They're your sex toys!" she bursts out and she's turning red, red, red and she's glaring at him. But honestly it's not his fault that he's laughing. Only she would get so worked up over something so simple and yeah it's amusing to hear something like that out of her mouth.

He can't stop laughing and suddenly she's up and smacking the back of his head. "You're so immature, Der_ek_," but there's a hint of a smile tugging on her lips, "I'm going, but I suppose I'll see you soon," and then like that's she's gone.

_He sleeps better than he has in months._

---

He feels a little bit closer to normal at parties.

The thumping bass can pass off as his heart and the alcohol fills his veins where the blood now runs dry. Girls twirl and swirl and grind on him and he responds. He's alive, he's normal. He can be himself ( she didn't kill him, she didn't kill him, he's still alive, he's still here, he's still _real_ ) He ignores Sam's concerned glances from across the room, because who does he think he is, his mother?

And with the booze and the girls he's feeling better than he has in a long time. A little reckless. A little invincible. A little bit unbreakable. So before he knows it, he's shooting off his mouth to the mammoth of a man that a little blond girl belongs to. They had been dancing, mammoth man got jealous, and he can't seem to stop the words spewing from his lips. ( he doesn't want to, doesn't want to stop, doesn't want to _quit_, doesn't want to lose because she never stopped or quitted or even really truly lost )

Sam's trying to pull him away, "Damn it Derek, do you have a death wish? Wait, don't answer that," and he's pulling him away but he doesn't want to go. But Sam's sober and therefore stronger and he's pulling him out of the house and into a car. Soon enough he's depositing him into his bed. He keeps insisting that he could've done it, he's scrappy. But Sam is just rolling his eyes and taking off his shoes and tucking him in. Then he's sitting on the bed and his head is in his hands.

"Don't do this anymore Derek. She would hate herself if she knew leaving would do this to you, don't make her hate herself," he's pleading and begging and it's the first time Sam has ever really asked him for anything. But he can't give this to him, not this, anything but _this_. So he turns around and lets the drunken haze lull him to sleep. He can't give Sam his escape.

_Not the alcohol or the self destruction because they're the only things that let him know he's still alive._

---

Sometimes she comes crying.

He hates it, fucking hates it, when she comes to him like this. She comes to him stuck in some past memory and everything that happened after disappears and they're trapped in the history of themselves. He hates it and he hates her tears and he hates that even though he wants, even though he needs to, push her away he can't. ( because _fuck it all to hell_, he needs her, needs her, _needs_ her, and he'll take her anyways she'll let him) He listens to her sobs and he makes the same remarks, the same ones he made all those years ago, and they're stuck in some delusional tango and it's killing him.

Sometimes it's over Max. But mostly over Truman. Truman, Truman, Truman, he's gone and yet he still fucking haunts him. And he wants to rip his own hair out ( okay maybe not, his hair is much too nice to be treated so horrifically ) and he wants to scream and shake her until she's his again. Until she's strong, independent, until she's Casey. ( because as much as he hates to admit it, he likes her the best like that )

He listens to her shaky sobs and watches as she gasps for air ( he understands that part, he knows what it's like to not be able to breathe ) and he teases her and taunts her until she angrily snaps back. Until she's done crying and aching and instead she's simmering with anger and passion and she's pushing back but he doesn't mind. ( because she's _Casey_ again )

Eventually she'll leave. She leave in a huff of anger or annoyance or one of the many feelings that he seems to bring out in her ( him only him, none of those other guys can quite get under her skin _quite_ like he can ) but as she turns the knob. Every time, she glances behind her and smiles. And it's her own way of saying Thanks. And it's all he really needs.

_After all, he'd do just about anything to have her near._

---

He's never quite sure how he ends up here.

In Emily's apartment, on her couch, with her blanket snuggly wrapped around him. It happens more often then he'd ever care to admit and most of the time he can escape without having to confront her. And on the rare occasions when's not already gone as he stumbles out of her door, she pretends he's not there. No harsh glares, or harsh words, but he can still see the harsh tears brimming at her eyes. But he never says anything either. He just opens the door and finds his way back home because he's not quite sure how to say sorry to a girl who wanted nothing more than just him ( and yeah, he couldn't even give her that fucking much )

It only happens on nights that Sam isn't around to monitor him. He hates them for it. Hates them for not letting him stumble and crawl until he can completely break ( and just get it the _fuck_ over with ) and he knows that it's killing her ( but she still comes and watches out for him because she _loves_ him ) but it doesn't mean he'll stop. After all, he never asked her to save him.

Sometimes he'll notice her. He'll see her at the corner of his eyes as he drinks his way into oblivion ( the only place where he thinks he may be able to survive ) and he can see the way her eyes always follow him. Follow him to the keg, follow him into the bedrooms with all those pretty girls, follow him into the corners of the rooms where his darkest secrets take place. She never interferes, not like Sam. Sam who won't let him fight, won't let him bleed, won't let his outside finally reflect his inside ( she always thought that he had no heart was so _ugly ugly ugly_ on the inside ) no, she just watches. And when the party is ending and he's about to slip right off the edge, the edge of sanity, the edge of safe, is when she steps in.

He's not quite sure how she ever manages to get him home. He knows that by the time she gets to him, he can't help himself and she's so tiny and he's so heavy and he wonders how such a fragile little girl ( but they're always stronger than they seem, aren't they? ) can get him in a car and out and all the way up those stairs.

He thinks that he must be her own personal hell. Having to watch him break himself and hurt himself and having to be the one to pick up all the pieces ( all over her very own best friend, that must just feeling fucking _wonderful_ ) and sometimes, sometimes when he's really drunk and he sees her out of the corner of his eyes at those parties, he'll look at her. Really look at her. And she'll meet his gaze head on because she's not the person with something to hide here. And he sees the little broken fragments of brown in her eyes and he knows that he shattered her, just like Casey shattered him. And he hates himself for being the one to cause her such pain but he doesn't stop.

_Because he never asked her to save him._

---

Sometimes they don't really say much of anything.

Sometimes she'll just look at him with those big blue eyes and they're so full of pity that he just wants to suffocate until he can't see them anymore. And he hates them the most when they're like this. When they're just watching and not saying anything because it's when it's like this that it's the most real. Nothing left to say or do because there's so many lies in between them and it'll just destroy them to try and fix it now. He wants to touch her, to feel her, to know that she's really there. But he can't and she won't and sometimes it just kills him that they're still playing the same damn games after all these years.

He wants to burn her, burn his fingertips into her skin until she's branded as his. He doesn't want to share because hell he's never been good at it, and he wants to bruise her with himself. He wants to hurt her and ruin her for everybody else ( because that's just the fucked up twisted kind of guy he is ) and he wants it so bad that it aches s ( aches until he can't breathe or see straight or stand on his own ) but she won't let him.

He imagines that if he's fire, then she must be ice ( after all, how many times had he called her a frigid bitch? ) and she's freezing him and branding him without ever having to touch him. ( why won't she just fucking _touch _him? ) He hates her for taunting and teasing and never just giving ( not to him, never to him ) most of all he hates her for making him need her like this. But even when she does this. Even when she watches him commit slow suicide, he never asks her to leave.

_She's the sweetest kind of death._

---

He hates himself the most when he looks into her eyes.

They're big and brown and once upon time they were innocent. They're the exact same shade of brown as his own and out of everything he's ever done, he regrets stealing away their innocence the most. She smiles when she see him and throws her tiny little arms around his neck ( and she always cries a little in his hair but both of them pretend she's not because crying isn't the Venturi way but pretending is ) and that's when he pulls her in tighter because he doesn't know what he'd do if he lost her.

"How's my little Smarti?" he'll whisper softly in her ear. And it's the only time he really feels it. The guilt ( it claws it's way through him until he's bleeding rivers of it ) and remorse. ( she's the only one he'd ever consider giving it up for, but not even she is enough this time) Sometimes he wants to apologize. To cry and break and beg for her to forgive him because he just can't stop anymore, doesn't know how and isn't quite sure if he wants to know how. ( but crying isn't the Venturi way and pretending is )

And she knows. He knows that she knows because she was the only one to ever really know him ( she had him wrapped around her tiny little finger from day one ) and he hates himself for hurting her. ( and this isn't something he can band-aid or kiss away ) But she simply looks up at him with those big brown eyes ( they still love him, she still loves him ) and just whispers "I'm fine Smerek, just fine" and he's knows she's not trying to do it. She's not trying to take his own lies and throw them back in his own face but she is, and he's hurting her and he hates himself.

For the rest of the night or day, depending on when he's there, they'll pretend that everything is perfectly normal. That's it's fine ( fine, just fucking fine ) and they're Smerek and Smarti again ( and for a moment he can forget her, forget how she's killing him ) but then he's leaving and her eyes are breaking all over again ( because she knows where he's going and what he's doing and it kills her ) so he just hugs her tighter and whispers "I'm so sorry" because he really truly is. But he won't stop.

_She's not his salvation anymore._

---

When she comes at sunset he knows he's screwed.

It's when she kills him ( when she completes him ) because sunsets were always kind of their thing. The room is set alive in a red glow that they know as their own and it looks like blood and despair and anger and passion and it's _them_. It's when she comes at sunset that the truth comes out. ( when he's hurtled back in memories that he's tried so _damn hard_ to forget )

He's allowed to touch her at sunset, and sunset only. First they're kissing and it's twilight and her eyes are sparkling and she's finally his ( and he finally feels _whole_ ) and she's his everything. But then they're kissing deeper and faster and more frantic as they _slip slip slip _out of control. ( he can smell burning rubber and hear the glass crack and shatter and he can taste the blood mixed with her vanilla lip gloss )

And he grabs onto her tighter because he knows she'll leave him as the sun disappears. The stars chase her away and he needs her and he's not quite sure how to let go ( letting go was never either of their strong points, too much like giving up ) and he needs her.

_But she's slipping away with the sunset and all he can do is watch her go._

---

He's well aware she'd hate him if she could.

But as long as she's his, he'll do whatever it takes. So he slips the needle in a little bit farther into his collapsing ( collapsed ) vein. He injects himself with the only thing that's keeping him ( numb ) alive. He knows she'd never approve and that it'd kill her to see him like this but she won't so that doesn't really matter, now does it?

He's well aware it's killing him and killing everybody around him but he's can't stop, won't stop because he's Derek fucking Venturi and he gets what he wants. And nothing means as much to him as this escape does. So it doesn't matter who pleads or how much they beg, they can't stop him. ( only she ever could and she's not available just right now )

He likes the way it makes him fly. Makes him fly higher than he's ever gone quite before. It can make all the petty problems and useless feeling go away and he's numb enough to never have to drown in himself ever again. It makes him untouchable and unbreakable and he loves it but that's not the reason that he's doing. That's not the reason he's addicted.

_It's because of the pretty hallucinations, illusions, delusions, that she's still here._

---

Predictably enough, it's Lizzie that confronts him.

In fact she just barges in as the needle hovers above his vein and she snatches the syringe away and throws it out the window. Which pisses him off, really pisses him off. ( he considers throwing _her _out the window )

"What the fuck are doing Venturi?" she hisses with her hands on her hips and a glare that Casey would've been proud of. ( oh God, Casey, he just wanted to see _Casey _)

"What the fuck does it look like I was doing? Throwing a Bible study?" he hisses and his fists are clenched tightly. She just threw out some good shit.

"Does it make it better Derek? Huh?! Does it make you feel good to fucking ruin yourself? Your family? Your friends? Does it make you feel better?" she's yelling now and he's never seen her so angry. She's red and tears are streaming down and this is all wrong. This isn't Lizzie at all and he wants the little girl who thought she could somehow save the world back, not this angry woman with bitter eyes.

"I'm not trying to ruin anything. I just need her. I need to see her, to be with her," he hates how pathetic he sounds. How weak. But he'll do anything to see her, hold her, taste her.

"Don't you think the rest of us need her too? We all lost her Derek, all of us. Not just you. And I get it okay? I get that she died in your arms. I get that you were in love with her. I know, okay? I know. She texted me, did you know that? She texted me exactly eighty minutes and fifty-three seconds before you guys crashed. And she was talking about you. She always talked about you. But do you know what she said? She said, he likes me back, this is the happiest day of my life and God Derek I was so thrilled for her. For you. And then, and then she was gone. No goodbye. No I love you. She was just gone. At least you got to say goodbye. At least you got to say I love you. I never got that Derek," and now she's crying and he can't do anything about it. He's too numb to comfort her or help her and all he can remember is Casey, his Casey, sticky in red liquid as she shook in his arms.

He didn't want to be the last to see her. Not like that. He didn't want to be the one that had to watch the light drain out of her. That had to promise her it would be okay when he knew it wouldn't. Then he's shaking and Lizzie is sobbing. "I'm sorry Lizzie, I'm sorry," and he feels like he's muttered this enough times for all the moments he couldn't say it.

"I know Derek. But you need to stop. You can't do this anymore. You're killing all of us. You're killing yourself. And Casey would never want that," and then she's stumbling out. He follows her out the door shortly after. He finds the syringe in the back of alley, it's still full.

_He doesn't even bother going back to his room to shoot it up._

---

He loves her more then he hates himself.

So when she appears, sobbing, he's just concerned about her. "Don't do this anymore Derek, let me go," and she in white and she's flowing and glowing and he can't touch her. ( why can't he ever fucking _touch _her? )

"I can't Case, I can't" he whimpers. And she's sobbing only her tears are red. They're blood and they're staining her pretty white dress. He waits for her to freak out and begin to clean it off but she doesn't even seem to notice.

It's sunset now and he knows she'll have to leave pretty soon. Only he doesn't think he'll be able to handle her leaving him again. ( he doesn't think he's surviving anymore, just being ) And he's pumping his arm with more liquid hallucinations than any one man would ever be able to handle. He watches as the sunset fades away and her face becomes brighter and clearer and she's holding out her arms to him. He steps towards them.

((**She'll never be his sunset again**.))


End file.
